You Don’t Have to Worry: Tax Answers from Jeff Schnepper

No matter how prepared you are for tax season, you probably worry at least a little whenever April 15th is getting close. We’ve covered your last-minute tax options in the past, but no matter how close that deadline is getting, we want to reduce your worry. Jeff Schnepper, MSN’s tax expert, agreed to answer a few questions for us, and offered a little reassurance.

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Tax Misconceptions — and Problems

One of the major reasons that our taxes keep us up at night, according to Jeff, is that there are so many myths and misconceptions about taxes: topics like who you can claim as a dependent and what you can take as a deduction involve as many urban legends as a bad horror movie. And it doesn’t stop there. Jeff says: “The most common misconception people have about taxes is that everybody else is cheating and getting away with something….giving them the “right” to fudge. Cheating is wrong and I’ve found that the taxpayers I work with understand, and want to do the right thing. The problem is that the law changes every year, and sometimes three and four times in a single year. The professionals are overwhelmed and the average taxpayer completely lost. It’s not that people are cheating – they’re making errors because they don’t know the rules.”

The past few months have shown the truth of that statement. If you consider just the appointments that President Obama has made (or attempted to make), it becomes obvious very quickly that even politicians who can afford the best tax preparers in the country can’t get their taxes done correctly.

What We Can Do to Reduce the Worry

Just because the tax system is complicated doesn’t mean that the average taxpayer needs to spend the time between now and April 15th cringing, however. Even the biggest tax bogeyman of them all — an audit by the IRS — isn’t something you should spend too much time worrying about. While you can minimize your overall chances of being audited by following the rules as closely as you can, and by having the right documentation, there’s a certain element of chance.

“You can’t avoid an audit. Returns are selected randomly as well as based on the IRS DIF computer program,” says Jeff. If there’s nothing left that you can do to make sure that your tax return is filled out accurately, you can stop worrying. If the computer picks your number, you may have to sit down with an auditor, but there’s nothing else you can do to affect the process.

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A Few Last Minute Options

Even though you’ll get the best results for preparing your tax return by starting as early as possible, Jeff was able to point out a few last minute deductions that you can pick up after December 31st: “Do you qualify for a deductible IRA or would a Roth be better. Can you contribute to a SEP?” He suggests looking into your IRA options if you’re still searching for deductions.

Jeff also notes that there are a few extra things to consider this year, if you’ve been affected by the current economic situation. Jeff says, “Sit down with a tax pro if you may lose your house. Congress passed a law that wipes out any taxes on debt discharge income on a principal home. But, you have to do it right and file the appropriate forms.” He also pointed out that if you’ve refinanced your mortgage, you can deduct any points you pay over the life of the refinance. You can even deduct any unamortized points on your original refinance if you refinance a second time.

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“The laws are in flux and are changing as you read this. For example, now the first $2,400 received in unemployment benefits escapes tax. You can get a $1,000 deduction for real estate taxes even if you take the standard deduction. For 2009, you can deduct sales tax on a new car even if you don’t itemize. If you don’t know the rules, you’re going to have a hard time playing the game,” says Jeff. He makes it clear that if you aren’t staying up to date on the changes in tax laws, you’re going to have a hard figuring out your taxes.

Getting Ready for Next Year

You can make your 2009 tax return easier by starting now. The secret to making tax season simple is setting up a system to document both your income and your deductible expenses throughout the year and keep it up to date. Jeff described one system his clients have been known to use: “For substantiation, I have clients who throw all their checks and receipts in a box. Once every month or so they sit down and put those checks and receipts into envelopes with tax classification. So, there’d be an envelope for contributions, investment expenses etc. At the end of the year, they add them up, don’t double count, and put the number outside the envelope. Those are the numbers they give me for their tax returns. And, they never have to fear an audit. An audit can only ask them to substantiate the numbers on the return. They already have the backup available in each envelope!” It doesn’t matter exactly what system you use, though, as long as you have one in place — and you keep it up to date throughout the year.

If you have a question about your taxes, Jeff Schnepper is MSN.com’s Tax Expert. You can find him at money.msn.com, where he answers questions every day. In addition to his MSN columns, Jeff is the author of How to Pay Zero Taxes, which is now in its 16th edition, as well as several other finance and tax-related books.

Why Do I Have Bad Luck? 2 Simple Things to Change Your Destiny

Are you one of those people who are always suffering setbacks? Does little ever seem to go right for you? Do you sometimes feel that the universe is out to get you? Do you wonder:

Why do I have bad luck? Is bad luck real?

A couple of months ago, I met up with an old friend of mine who I hadn’t seen since last year. Over lunch, we talked about all kinds of things, including our careers, relationships and hobbies.

My friend told me his job had become dull and uninteresting to him, and despite applying for promotion – he’d been turned down. His personal life wasn’t great either, as he told me that he’d recently separated from his long-term girlfriend.

When I asked him why things had seemingly gone wrong at home and work, he paused for a moment, and then replied:

“I’m having a run of bad luck.”

I was surprised by his response as I’d never thought of him as someone who thought that luck controlled his life. He always appeared to be someone who knew what he wanted – and went after it with gusto.

He told me he did believe in bad luck because of everything happened to me.

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It was at this point, that I shared my opinion on luck and destiny:

While chance events certainly occur, they are purely random in nature. In other words, good luck and bad luck don’t exist in the way that people believe. And more importantly, even if random negative events do come along, our perspective and reaction can turn them into positive things.

Your luck is no worse—and no better—than anyone else’s. It just feels that way. Better still, there are two simple things you can do which will reverse your feelings of being unlucky and change your luck.

1. Stop believing that what happens in life is out of your control.

Stop believing that what happens in your life is down to the vagaries of luck, destiny, supernatural forces, malevolent other people, or anything else outside yourself.

Psychologists call this “external locus of control.” It’s a kind of fatalism, where people believe that they can do little or nothing personally to change their lives.

Because of this, they either merely hope for the best, focus on trying to change their luck by various kinds of superstition, or submit passively to whatever comes—while complaining that it doesn’t match their hopes.

Most successful people take the opposite view. They have “internal locus of control.” They believe that what happens in their life is nearly all down to them; and that even when chance events occur, what is important is not the event itself, but how you respond to it.

This makes them pro-active, engaged, ready to try new things, and keen to find the means to change whatever in their lives they don’t like.

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They aren’t fatalistic and they don’t blame bad luck for what isn’t right in their world. They look for a way to make things better.

Are they luckier than the others? Of course not.

Luck is random—that’s what chance means—so they are just as likely to suffer setbacks as anyone else.

What’s different is their response. When things go wrong, they quickly look for ways to put them right. They don’t whine, pity themselves, or complain about “bad luck.” They try to learn from what happened to avoid or correct it next time and get on with living their life as best they can. They have this Motivation Engine, which most people lack, to keep them going.

No one is habitually luckier or unluckier than anyone else. It may seem so, over the short term (Random events often come in groups, just as random numbers often lie close together for several instances—which is why gamblers tend to see patterns where none exist).

When you take a longer perspective, random chance is just . . . random. Yet those who feel that they are less lucky, typically pay far more attention to short-term instances of bad luck, convincing themselves of the correctness of their belief.

Your locus of control isn’t genetic. You learned it somehow. If it isn’t working for you, change it.

2. Remember that whatever you pay attention to grows in your mind.

If you focus on what’s going wrong in your life—especially if you see it as “bad luck” you can do nothing about—it will seem blacker and more malevolent.

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In a short time, you’ll become so convinced that everything is against you that you’ll notice more and more instances where this appears to be true. As a result, you will drown yourself in negative energy and almost certainly stop trying, convinced that nothing you can do will improve your prospects.

Not long ago, a reader (I’ll call her Kelly) has shared with me about how frustrated she felt and how unlucky she was. Kelly’s an aspiring entrepreneur. She had been trying to find investors to invest in her project. It hadn’t been going well as she was always rejected by the potential investors. And at her most stressful time, her boyfriend broke up with her. And the day after her breakup, she missed an important opportunity to meet an interested investor. She was about to give up because she felt that she’d not be lucky enough to build her business successfully.

It definitely wasn’t an easy time for her. She was stressful and tired. But it wasn’t bad luck that was playing the role.

Fatalism feeds on itself until people become passive “victims” of life’s blows. The “losers” in life are those who are convinced they will fail before they start anything; sure that their “bad luck” will ruin any prospects of success.

They rarely notice that the true reasons for their failure are ignorance, laziness, lack of skill, lack of forethought, or just plain foolishness—all of which they could do something to correct, if only they would stop blaming other people or “bad luck” for their personal deficiencies.

I explained to Kelly that to improve her fortune and have “good luck”, first decide that what happens is nearly always down to her; then try to focus on what works and what turns out well, not the bad stuff.

Then Kelly tried to review her current situation objectively. She realized that she only needed a short break for herself — from work and her just broken-up relationship. She really needed some time to clear up her mind before moving on with her work and life. When she got her emotions settled down from her heartbreak, she started to work on improving her business’ selling points and looked for new investors that are more suitable.

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A few months later, she told me that she finally found two investors who were really interested in her project and would like to work with her to grow the business. I was really glad that she could take back control of her destiny and achieved what she wanted.

Your “fate” really does depend on the choices that you make. When random events happen, as they always will, do you choose to try to turn them to your advantage or just complain about them?

What’s Next?

Now that you’ve learned the 2 simple things you can do to take control of your fate and create your own luck. But this isn’t it! These simple techniques you’ve learned here are just part of the essential 7 Cornerstone Skills — a skillset that will give you the power to create permanent solutions to big problems in life — any problem in any area of your life!

If you think you’re “suffering from bad luck”, you can really change things up and start life over with these 7 Cornerstone Skills. It may even be a lot easier than you thought: